


Not In Despair

by amyfortuna



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Kissing, Mirror of Galadriel, implied Aragorn/Arwen - Freeform, implied Elrond/Celebrían - Freeform, mentioned Goldberry/Tom Bombadil - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 11:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6236851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arwen can't face dying alone, but fortunately, she doesn't have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not In Despair

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [olderladiesfemslashfest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/olderladiesfemslashfest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> I may or may not have a thing for Goldberry at deathbeds, and I'd love to see her at Arwen's. (And that is literally it.)
> 
> * * *

It was a long slow death, all through that winter in the fading land of Lothlórien, under the golden leaves of the mallorn trees. Arwen was weak from lack of food almost before she arrived, and there was nothing in that land left to sustain her. 

The place was deserted. She wandered from flet to flet, remembering the names of the people who had once lived there. Her own rooms were still there, and forgotten pieces of jewellery lay on the rotting wood of what was once a vanity table. There was a mirror, half-rusted, which she had looked into with laughing, excited eyes a few moments before walking with Aragorn up to the hill of Cerin Amroth, where they had plighted their troth so long ago. She looked into it now, and an ageing face looked back at her, as of that of a mortal woman just beyond her prime. Grey touched her hair as if with frost. 

In Minas Tirith, women who looked her age could have young children underfoot, were nowhere near to death. She, however, was fading from the world, inch by inch, moment by moment. She was the grey twilight of winter, soon to be consumed by darkness. A gasp in her breath, she caught up the mirror and threw it with unsteady hands into the corner of the room, where it smashed against the wall and coruscated down in tiny shards that caught the light. 

Swiftly she turned and left that room, running down the long steps that led up into the trees, her skirts caught up in her hands. The black fabric of her dress, worn now for many days, was wearing thin, and winter's chill struck through her. 

She paused at the bottom of the steps to glance upward at the rustling leaves. One great leaf, the first of the season, swayed loose from the tree far over her head and began to fall. The time was come. 

Down to the little valley that once held the Mirror of Galadriel she walked. There sat the pitcher and ewer, not at all rusted, as though they had been left for her to find, and Arwen smiled sadly. "Thank you, grandmother," she whispered, and bent to fill the pitcher in the nearby fountain, or would have done, if she hadn't dropped it in surprise to see another face. 

The lady who sat on the fountain, wrapped in only her own long golden hair, picked it up gracefully and handed it to her. "Greetings, Arwen Undómiel!" she said, and there was laughter in her voice. "Do you remember the long-ago days when we two played by the riverside near Imladris?" 

"Goldberry!" Arwen exclaimed, and set the pitcher down on the edge of the fountain to throw her arms around her. "River-daughter, how have you come to me here?" 

"It was a long journey," Goldberry said. "I saw the roots of the mountains, and the wells of the sky. But yours has been the harder road, for always my Tom will wait for me, whenever I go a-roving, just as I do for him. Yet your spouse goes on ahead and you cannot find the path without great pain." 

Arwen, her arms still around Goldberry, buried her face in the wealth of hair that drifted over Goldberry's shoulder. "It is not easy to die," she whispered. 

Goldberry shook her head. "Oh my love," she said. "It is very easy to die, for so much does, and nearly all struggling, breathless in their need for life. It is much harder to accept death, to greet it as a friend, as a gift." She paused, and kissed Arwen on the forehead. "I will stay with you, until there is no more need to."

Arwen released her, and Goldberry picked up the pitcher once again from where it sat on the fountain beside her, dipping it deep into the cold clear water. "Go now," she said, handing the pitcher to Arwen, "and look one last time in the Mirror of Galadriel." 

In silence, Arwen inclined her head, took the pitcher, carried it over to the ewer, and poured it in. Under her breath she spoke the words that would turn the water into a Mirror, and bent her head to look into it. 

Her first sight was of Imladris, which was snow-covered. In the Hall of Fire her grandfather sat, writing busily at a small table. He seemed deeply absorbed in his work and did not look up. In another part of Imladris, her brothers were standing in a hallway, chatting animatedly to one another. It was so like her memories of home that for an instant she was struck with an overwhelming desire to go back to the Valley, despite knowing that her feet would never bear her there. 

But the Mirror moved on swiftly. In the Havens, Cirdan stood, hair blowing in the wind, looking out to sea. For an instant he almost seemed to be aware of her, and turned to look at her, but the Mirror was moving on already. For a long moment, there was nothing but grey skies, racked with rain, and then at last the Sun emerged, shining forth from the Mirror so brightly that it lit Arwen's face up. 

And she could see her father and mother. Her breath caught in her throat. Elrond was on his knees in a garden, planting what looked to be a small tree. Beside him Celebrían stood, a pitcher of water in her hand. They were laughing together as she remembered them from long years ago laughing, without care or fear. The Mirror's sight lingered there for a long moment, and Arwen smiled, catching her hands at her breast for fear she would try to reach through the Mirror itself to touch them. 

At last the Mirror did move on, and Arwen caught a glimpse of a great hall, where a king with golden hair sat on a throne. Though she had never seen this king's face before, she knew it to be her great-grandfather, Finarfin, and at his right hand her foremother Earwen sat, and at his left, their daughter Galadriel, her face alight with beauty and hard-won wisdom. 

There was no doubt about whether Galadriel was aware of her; it was clear on her face, and she turned with wide eyes gone suddenly sorrowful toward Arwen. Sound could not carry through the Mirror, but Galadriel's lips moved in a silent farewell. Arwen brought her fingers to her lips and cast a kiss across the Sea, a final _Namárië_ for the ones she was leaving behind. 

And then the Mirror reflected the stars only, and Arwen bent her head over the Mirror's waters and wept, her tears mingling with the water. 

Goldberry rose from her seat at the fountain, and when she stood up she was clothed in a dress of silver with a black girdle, and wore shoes that reflected light like the scales of fish. Laying her arms around Arwen's waist she stood silent and comforting, until Arwen turned, wiping her eyes with her hands, summoning a small smile from the unknown depths of her heart. 

"I am ready," she said, and they walked together, hand in hand, out of the city, and up to the hill of Cerin Amroth. 

The journey was unhurried, accompanied by the sound of falling leaves. They spoke little to each other, but Arwen was glad beyond measure for the warmth of Goldberry at her side. When at last they reached the summit of the hill, Arwen turned to look out across the land, at the bare treetops and the golden leaves that now covered the grass. The sun was setting, breaking through the lowering clouds and lighting up the land with gold, touching the strands of Goldberry's hair and turning it to white fire. 

"It is hard at the ending," she said after a long moment. "So my father feared it would be. Was it this hard for Lúthien, at the end, I wonder?"

Goldberry drew closer to Arwen and kissed her softly, first on the cheek, then on her mouth, briefly. "No," she said, drawing back. "It was not this hard, her final death. She was with Beren, and somewhere now, even though all that land is sea-drowned, they lie together. But you, my love, have the harder part - you must follow treading weary the path that your beloved found so easy."

Arwen looked down at the ground, leaf-covered and soft. "I am so weary," she said. "Sit beside me here in the leaves. Sing to me, and I will find it easier." 

The ground was warm against all expectations of winter, and seemed to hold her as gently as ever a bed did. She lay down, and Goldberry knelt beside her, brushing her hair back, murmuring softly to her, now humming, now singing some faint tune, some snatch of a long-lost lullaby. She pressed her lips to Arwen's face, over and over, as light as rose petals, as warm as sunshine. 

Through the long winter night Goldberry sat beside Arwen, and when the first light was just beginning to break, Arwen took one long deep breath, and smiled upwards beyond Goldberry at something she could not see. 

"I understand at last," she said. " _In sorrow, but not in despair._ " She turned to look at Goldberry one last time, and a light was in her eyes. "Kiss me one last time, in memory of all our happy days." 

Goldberry bent and kissed her slowly, her warm mouth clinging to Arwen's cold lips. "Farewell, Evenstar," she breathed. 

Arwen sighed and smiled upwards, meeting Goldberry's eyes. The faint light of dawn was just touching her hair and face, but Arwen was in shadow still. 

" _Namárië_ ," she whispered, almost too faint to hear, and as the light of the new day touched her face, she took her last breath. 


End file.
